Re: [microsound] Is microsound boring?

[James Harkins <jamshark70@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 9:04 PM -0700 7/18/02, dkl37@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 22:35:52 -0400 James Harkins <jamshark70@xxxxxxxxx>
> writes:
>
> >  How much avant-garde music is reflecting wisdom, and how much is
> >  reflecting knowledge for the sake of knowledge? I can intuit the
> >  difference when I hear it, and I can tell you, I'm desperately bored
>  > by the latter.
>
> > Perhaps what you really mean is that what you recognize as wisdom, 
> > is absent from much avant garde music. But that doesn't mean that 
> > none is there at all.<<

Dale, I never said there was no wisdom there. I think a lot of 
avant-garde musicians (and artists) delude themselves into thinking 
that they're doing so-called "important" work, when often, it's just 
stupid. And the entire contemporary art world has degraded to the 
point where we're afraid to say "Look, that just sucks." Maybe that's 
because being "open-minded" is seen as a greater virtue than having 
discernment; nobody wants to be seen as someone who just doesn't "get 
it." Or maybe it's because we're afraid of someone saying that our 
work is stupid. In that case, the avant-garde posture, rather than 
being courageous and cutting edge, becomes a way to avoid the risk of 
evaluation. With no risk, there's no edge and no courage. (And what's 
so great about being cutting-edge anyway?)

Again, I have to emphasize that not all avant-gardists are guilty in 
this way! I have to emphasize that because there's a knee-jerk 
reaction in the avant-garde world: when you stop playing the game of 
inflating bad artists' egos, someone invariably steps in to accuse 
you of tarring the entire scene with a broad brush. I've had enough 
experiences of powerful-yet-difficult music to note that the kind of 
healing I was talking about can be found in sounds that on the 
surface are anything but healing. Another example would be Vox 5 from 
Trevor Wishart's _Vox_ cycle which for all its strangeness has, for 
me, the same elemental power as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Awe 
before the unfathomable forces of nature. Stunning. I heard Vox 5 in 
a concert in Champaign, Ill. almost ten years ago, the full 
quadraphonic version, and was totally blown away. I'll never forget 
it. (I also can't remember a single other piece that was 
performed/presented that night -- they were all that forgettable -- 
including a piece by the European modernist darling Kaija Saariaho -- 
totally overrated. Yawn!)

If I'm cynical about the avant-garde, it's because I know the 
potential of the avant-garde and it makes me angry when that 
potential is squandered. It might make me seem closed-minded, but I 
really just want not to let talented artists off the hook.

James
--
 ______                         | "To be thoroughly lazy is a tough
 \    /  H. James Harkins       |  job, but somebody has to do it.
  \  /   jamshark70@xxxxxxxxx   |  Industrious people build industry.
   \/                           |  Lazy people build civilization."
                                |                -- Kazuaki Tanahashi

                  http://www.duke.edu/~jharkins

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